War Of The Worlds Movie Essay

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The movie War of the Worlds directed by Stephen Spielberg came out in 2005 and is one of the many adaptions of the original book by Herbert George Wells in 1898. This movie retells the story of aliens inside capsules who invade earth and begin to destroy humanity. However, the movie is a bit different from the book and includes a new message which will be discussed later in this essay. The movie starts out in New Jersey with a divorced dad whose kids are dropped off at his house while his ex-wife leaves to visit her parents in Boston. The aliens begin to attack in New Jersey and the dad escapes with his children while they endure intense encounters with the aliens as they head towards Boston. The movie ends in Boston with the aliens dying from bacteria that humans have become …show more content…

In the book, the first alien to come down hits the earth like a meteor and then sits in the ground for at least a day (Wells, 1898). However, in the movie, the first alien to come down hits the earth by coming down in its capsule through lightening. The alien sits underneath the ground inside of its capsule for only a couple minutes and then emerges from the earth (Spielberg, 2005). Spielberg probably sped up the alien invasion so that he could add more scenes in the movie without wasting too much time on people observing the capsule like the book did.
In conclusion, we can see from this essay how the War of the Worlds movie by Spielberg is a loose adaption of The War of the Worlds book by Wells. This loose adaption is shown through the difference in the social fears at each time, the appearance of the aliens, and how the aliens hit the earth. The biggest influence in this movie adaption is the social fears Spielberg portrayed in the movie. The difference in social fears sets a new tone for this movie by changing the scenes to fit the social fears following the 9/11

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